Tbilisi City Court to Hear the Case against Otar Partskhaladze and Mikheil Chokheli Today

07.02.2019

The Tbilisi City Court commenced hearing of the case against Otar Partskhaladze and Mikheil Chokheli. Today, on February 7, the hearing is scheduled at 16:00pm. The victim in the criminal case Lasha Tordia is not in Georgia and his advocate, lawyer of Human Rights Center Eka Kobesashvili will attend the proceedings.

On November 5, 2018, during the presidential election campaign, the chief prosecutor’s office got active and brought charges against Partskhaladze and Chokheli under Article 126 Part I of the CCG in one day. Lasha Tordia was found guilty and the prosecutor’s office sent motion to the court to impose preventive measure on the accused persons – all was done in one day including the court hearing. It is unclear for the Human Rights Center, why the prosecutor’s office was so active and HRC is particularly curious about the fact that the organization, which defends the rights of Lasha Tordia, learned about all procedures carried out on November 5 only from media.

The Chief Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia did not satisfy the claim of the Human Rights Center to change the qualification of the charge brought against the former chief prosecutor Otar Partskhaladze and senior official of the ministry of finances Mikheil Chokheli from Article 126 (beating) into the Article 3531 (assault on a state official because of his/her professional activities) of the Criminal Code of Georgia over the case of physical assault on Lasha Tordia. The prosecutor’s office did not take into account that two persons are accused of one and the same action in the case that means the criminal case should have been qualified as organized crime.